Glacial Red
by ReaperRain
Summary: Banus' reaction to the death of his Speaker. Banus Alor and Alval Uvani, two rather neglected members of the Dark Brotherhood. Rated for violent themes.


Because I'm on a Banus/Uvani kick, I thought I'd write another story, but this one with a darker subject matter at hand. Going by the assumption that Banus was Uvani's Silencer (though there is nothing in the game to verify this), I thought I'd write about his reaction to his Speaker's assassination.

There are hints of Uvani/Banus, but nothing concrete. See it as close friendship or romance, whichever you prefer. And LuLa fangirls beware, his end in Applewatch will be included.

**Disclaimer:** Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the property of Bethesda, not I.

* * *

Glacial Red

Uvani is dead.

It hits him like a cold tidal wave. He starts to tremble, and Arquen hastily guides him over to a chair before he can collapse, pressing a glass of water into his hand. It tastes like bile going down, and he lets it slip from his hand soon thereafter, not a flinch as it shatters on the floor.

"How?" he whispers.

Arquen looks as though he doesn't want to tell him, but she has no choice: "Assassinated."

She does not need to say anything else. He looks down at his knuckles, biting back the urge to scream, and all the while thinks _You stupid man, you promised you wouldn't get killed by some lowlife traitor, you promised..._

"The same as the others?" he asks hoarsely, remembering all the other Speakers that have turned up dead, the ugly near-black bruising around their throats from having the life choked out of them. There's a spike of nausea when Arquen nods, and for a second he sees Uvani – cold and lifeless, red eyes still open, maybe, and the dark imprint of fingers marring his Dunmer-blue skin. Strangulation isn't a quick way to go, and he wonders almost furiously why Uvani didn't cast a spell, push the attacker away, _anything_. Had he been silenced? Paralysed?

"This is the work of Lucien's Silencer. There's no doubt about it," Belisarius sneers, spitting Lucien's name as though it were poison. "But she joined after the murders started...she's just following orders. _He's_ our traitor."

Banus' fingers slowly curl into a fist, then uncurl again; "We need to find him."

"In due time, Banus, but the Listener must be warned-"

"We need to find him," Banus repeats harshly, making the others flinch – they've never seen him _irritable_, never mind seething with rage. "I want him _dead_, do you understand?"

"Of course, Speaker," Arquen says quickly, and departs the room with Belisarius to send her best couriers: to find the Listener and to track Lucien down. It's only when he's left alone that he realises what she called him – realises that with Uvani gone, he has been put in his place. Silencer to Speaker. The thought only makes him tremble more.

* * *

The courier doesn't reach Ungolim in time to warn him, only to witness his demise. Definitely Lucien's Silencer, he confirms, and adds that Lucien was there too. He is richly rewarded for getting close enough to eavesdrop, and give them a location – Applewatch Farm.

He only gets a glimpse of Lucien at first; a shadow of a man, unwashed and unshaven from his days on the run, sallow skin and dark rings around his eyes. Those eyes flash hope, then unparalleled terror when he realises it is not his Silencer. He tries to make a lunge through the window, but Belisarius and Bellamont tackle him to the ground and wrestle him back.

"I'm not the traitor! _I'm not the traitor!_" he shouts, and Banus grits his teeth; even now, after all he's done, after all the evidence against him, he still tries to worm his way out of it. He fights, and fights, even after he has been expertly tied up by Bellamont, even when he has no possible chance of escape. It is only when Banus approaches that he falls quiet, perhaps silenced by the glacial red of the Dunmer's eyes.

Banus speaks quietly, although he wants to scream: "You have betrayed the Brotherhood."

Lucien shakes his head desperately, pleas starting up again: "I didn't, I swear I didn't. Banus, I've been framed-"

"You killed your own brethren," Banus continues, talking effortlessly over him even though his voice remains soft, "And for this, you will be punished."

Lachance keeps protesting his innocence, but Banus ignores him, kneeling down so they are at eye-level, and reaching for the silver short-sword the Imperial keeps at his waist.

"You no longer deserve to wield a weapon," he takes the blade form its sheath with a metallic scrape that pierces the air, "You no longer deserve to wear the robes of the Black hand," he slashes the robes open, along with the rest of the former-assassin's clothes, leaving him as naked and humiliated as a traitor should be.

And justice begins.

He does not join in, preferring to watch as the other Speakers fulfil their bloodlust; Belisarius with a gleeful laugh, claiming it's been too long since he's done this, and Arquen with a grin and teeth stained red. Bellamont in particular seems to enjoying Lucien's suffering, cutting and slashing like it is his art, sighing blissfully at the strangled screams and agonised cries. He watches, but he takes no pleasure in it, as he usually does with death. He is too embittered with the loss of Uvani to feel anything akin to happiness now.

"Wait," he calls when Lachance is nearing death, when he's lost so much blood that his skin has become ghost-white. He walks over again, kneels down again to see him face-to-face, and asks: "Do you still claim your innocence, Lachance?"

Lucien coughs and splutters blood before he can answer, his voice rough and broken, his eyes barely able to open. Light-headed from the blood loss and half-mad from the pain, he can do no more than mutter: "Not...traitor...set up...framed..."

"_You_ are the traitor, Lucien," Banus tells him softly, "You killed the other Speakers. You killed Uvani."

"Didn't...not...traitor..."

"You killed Uvani, Lucien," Banus repeats. His voice remains low and quiet, but there's no disguising the anger behind it, and the others glance at each other nervously behind him. "Your Silencer strangled him, made him suffer, because you gave the order. You-" he grits his teeth when Lucien keeps shaking his head, keeps denying it with no remorse or regret. "You killed him. The one person I ever cared about, and he's dead because of you. _Gone._"

Lucien still shakes his head in denial, still mouths the words he is too weak to say. _Not the traitor_. He wants to hear the man admit it, hear him confess to his transgressions, but it never happens. So he stands back and lets the others continue for a few minutes, because Lucien won't last much longer than that.

They string him up by his ankles to the ceiling, red cascading down, chunks of him still littering the floor. Arquen hands him the silver short-sword with a smile, more melancholy than manic, because of all of them she most comprehends what Uvani meant to him. He tended to put off the other assassins with his brusque impatience and trademark sneer, but he always got on with Banus, and that in itself speaks volumes. Banus inclines his head, takes the sword, and shoves it as forcefully as he can through Lucien's cold, black heart.

It isn't exactly the killing blow, because Lucien would have died from his injuries within a minute or so anyway – but it's the final wound before the body gives up and goes still, hanging limp and lifeless with blood still dripping from what's left of its flesh. Banus steps back with a slow exhalation, and lets the sword clatter to the floor.

Uvani has been avenged. And yet...

* * *

An odd serenity takes over him following Lachance's death – not peace, just numb detachment. He watches with an odd, distant smile as the Silencer arrives, as her eyes go wide and horrified at the sight of the corpse left to rot in the centre of the room. She too tries to protest her late Speaker's innocence, but Arquen hushes her, explains that Lachance lied to all of them, even his own protégé.

This is the woman who killed Uvani, he thinks as she bypasses Arquen and slowly approaches the body. It was her hands that curled around Uvani's throat, her eyes that watched him fade away. But it was not by her will, he reminds himself. She was but the tool; the true traitor is dead and gone. And so he can remain civil to her, the smile never leaving his face as he softly murmurs to her _May we forever serve the Night Mother._

He wonders, on the journey over to Bravil, what he will do when this mess is finally behind him. He does not want to imagine living without Uvani, but what choice does he have? Sithis frowns on suicide, and so does his dead Speaker – the coward's way out, he had always said, in such a way that suggests he perhaps contemplated at one point in his life. But difficult as it may be to resist the easy path, he will persevere. He does not want to ascend to the afterlife to find Uvani sneering down at him with nothing but brutal and disappointed words.

He is a Speaker now, and he will take Uvani's place, maybe even inherit the 'wandering merchant' guise the other Dunmer used. Or perhaps he will be appointed the new Listener, but he does not think that will happen. He does not _want_ it to happen, because he already has more than enough to deal with.

He gets his wish.

There is a only a moment – only a spilt-second of understanding, of _The traitor!_ before he feels a dagger plunged into him, seeping enchanted ice into his veins. He lives long enough to see Belisarius also fall, to hear Arquen's panicked cry, and to realise that Lucien had been telling the truth all along. _Forgive m-_ he doesn't get to finish the thought, because he is gone.

When he opens his eyes again, he is cold-but-hot, tired-but-not, and calm-but-frantic as to his whereabouts. But then he realises there is someone standing over him, and as his eyes travels up he recognises that outfit, that shade of blue skin, that ever-present scowl he doesn't find as unfriendly as everyone else does.

_What took you so long?_ Says Uvani, tapping his foot in impatience.

Banus smiles, and tells the other to hurry up and help him to his feet.


End file.
